Following revelations of phone-hacking at the News of the World, the news that the mother of Sara Payne, the murdered schoolgirl, may have had her phone hacked by someone working for the NoW is perhaps as low as it can go. Clearly some at the News International felt immune from the rule of law, with powerful politicians (not to mention some top policemen) falling under their sway. Peter Oborne has some interesting things to say in today’s Telegraph about the pernicious effect on politics in recent years of this cosy relationship between press and politicians. In fact it has been so close that it has excluded those inconvenient people, the voters. With the Murdoch media to manage their images, Labour and Tory politicians have been able to ignore their traditional supporters, while giving a nod to their concerns from time to time. No longer do they rely on individual members… Read more